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Monday, September 29, 2014

We had the most wonderful class on Sunday, taught by Lisa Lee of Inchie Arts. Lisa was teaching the Kumomi method, which is a creative process developed by Karen Elaine Parsons. Per Karen Elaine, "Kumomi is a creative process which combines the randomness of spontaneous painting with the control of meditative drawing as an art form. you don't need to be artistic to receive the benefits of Kumomi." "Kumomi is the combination of Japanese characters for 'cloud' and 'to see' so it essentially means 'cloud gazing."

We even had some beautiful, meditative music to listen to while we worked. We began with Splash Inks, and using a palette to mix our colors, we painted onto 4" Artboard Squares from Inchie Arts. Everyone's work was different, and I noticed that I tended to leave a lot more white space than some. I think that was because I knew that the second part of the exercise was pattern drawing within the white space. I enjoyed the process immensely, and I plan to make a lot more of these.

Lisa said that the tile that we liked the least in the beginning would probably end up being our favorite at the end. That was good news, because hm.

Here's my first one, and I really like how it turned out. Those of you who know me will not be surprised at these colors.

Thursday, September 25, 2014

A big thank you everyone who commented on my blog and all of the other blogs in the joint Magenta, IMAGINE Crafts blog hop! Winners of the prizes are Barbara Macaskill, Bridget Larson and Katie. Winners have been notified...Congratulations!!

Thursday, September 18, 2014

Welcome to a week of fantastic collaboration between IMAGINE Crafts and Magenta Rubber Stamps! Both companies are excited to share with you their products, from the latest inks from IMAGINE Crafts to the newest Fall and Holiday stamp releases from Magenta.

I'm back with my third entry for the Blog Hop! When I saw this gorgeous new stamp from Magenta, with the cute, fat cuddly birds, I knew right away I would have some fun with it. I have made several great cards with this stamp, and today, I elected to do a faux watercolor technique that, if you are a regular follower of my blog, you will know is one of my favorites to lay down background color. Usually, I use dye based inks, but this time, I tried it with pigment ink, and I think the results are great. Here's my card:

I applied Encore Ultimate Metallic Ink, Enchanted Evening directly to an acrylic block, and spritzed lightly with water. The Metallic Ink has a lovely sheen in real life, and I love the color combination on the Enchanted Evening pad. I also really like the watercolor effect this technique gives.

The birds and sentiment were stamped with Versafine Onyx Black ink. I wanted just a little spot of color on the birds, so I put a little Memento Grape Jelly ink onto an acrylic block, added some water and this time picked up the ink with a paintbrush. I brushed the color onto the bird's scarf.

For a little extra shimmer, I sprayed the whole card with Psst! Sheer Shimmer Frost. At the end, some pearls and gems were sprinkled across the card.

I hope this will inspire you to try this technique for laying down some background color. Please leave a comment to be eligible for a great prize from IMAGINE Crafts and Magenta, and click on the links below to visit the other blogs in the hop.

Magenta Stamps used:

42.217.N Cuddly Winter Birds

07.730.H I am in love with this day!

IMAGINE Crafts/Tsukineko products used:

Encore Ultimate Metallic Enchanted Evening pad UM4-1

Versafine Onyx Black Ink

Memento Grape Jelly Ink

Psst! Sheer Shimmer Frost

Other:

Hero Arts Mixed Accents

Purple & Blue So Silk paper

Prizes galore for participating in the Blog Hop this week!

IMAGINE Crafts and Magenta are offering a total of three different prizes this week as part of this Blog Hop. These prizes include IMAGINE Crafts' irRESISTible Texture Spray, irRESISTible Pico Embellisher, Delicata Shimmery Silver and Golden Glitz AND some of the newest releases from Magenta. Take a moment to visit the other featured artists' blogs listed below and leave a comment on their posts by midnight PST September 21st. Three winners will be randomly selected from three different blogs from the seven days of the Hop, with one commenter from each blog draw as the winner.

Presenting the other featured projects for today:

Blog Hop Hint– if you click on a link that takes you to a page saying something like, “Sorry this page cannot be found,” just click on the header at the top of the blog (usually a picture, or the blog’s name), and it will take you to that blog’s most recent post. That post *should* be our hop. If not, you can probably scroll down a short way to find the hop post.

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Welcome to a week of fantastic collaboration between IMAGINE Crafts and Magenta Rubber Stamps! Both companies are excited to share with you their products, from the latest inks from IMAGINE Crafts to the newest Fall and Holiday stamp releases from Magenta.

Today I thought I would try my favorite acrylic block stamping technique (you can see a tutorial in my original blogpost on this technique here). This time I'm using StazOn solvent based inks from Tsukineko and IMAGINE Crafts. I only recently heard from John Petersen of IMAGINE Crafts and Debbie Gaetz, an IMAGINE Crafts Artist in Residence that you can briefly make StazOn inks runny by spraying with alcohol. Debbie tried this on her blog on September 1st, and made a beautiful card. (You can visit her blog here).

I started by applying various colors of StazOn Ink to an acrylic block, and spraying liberally with alcohol (91% rubbing alcohol). After spraying, I stamped onto watercolor paper. You have to move fairly quickly, because this mixture will dry on your block. Not to worry, what didn't clean off the acrylic block with a baby wipe cleaned off easily with StazOn cleaner.

I found that since the ink dried so quickly, it was fairly easy to layer colors. After having fun spraying and stamping with the block, I finished off the background with a good spray of Psst! Gold Shimmer Spritz. This added a really gorgeous gold shimmer to the entire piece. I paired this background with one of my favorite new Magenta stamps, the Multilingual Thank You. The second sentiment in the block is Thank You in Icelandic (love!). I stamped the sentiment onto a square of clear acetate and used vellum tape on the corners to stick it down. A few gems were sprinkled on at the end. In real life this card has the most beautiful shimmer. Here's a closeup that shows that shimmer and the stamping on the acetate a little better

I have a bonus card on this post, because I could not stop playing with the Multilingual Thank You stamp, and also because I'm kind of in love with the new Irresistible Pico Embellishers. In this card, I also used the Magenta Clover Silhouette stamp designed by the very talented Ellie Knol, of Magenta Design Team fame.

I first stamped the sentiment in Versafine Onyx Black, and embossed with clear embossing powder. I used various colors of Memento markers to color the Clover Silhouette stamp (first using Cantaloupe and Bamboo Leaves, and then going over many of the leaves with Potter's Clay). The leaves were colored and stamped three times. I then went over some of the leaves with the Pico Embellisher in Copper. This gave them the most beautiful dimensional shine. Work slowly, and be sure to start on a scrap piece of paper before starting each new leaf. I also had fun making my own enamel dots. I slowly squeezed out gorgeous coppery goodness from the Irresistible Embellisher onto my craft mat, making the dots different sizes. I had to leave these overnight to dry completely; but it was well worth having some enamel dots to match my project.

These cards were so much fun to make! Please leave a comment to be eligible for a great prize from IMAGINE Crafts and Magenta, and click on the links below to visit the other blogs in the hop.

Prizes galore for participating in the Blog Hop this week!

IMAGINE Crafts and Magenta are offering a total of three different prizes this week as part of this Blog Hop. These prizes include IMAGINE Crafts' irRESISTible Texture Spray, irRESISTible Pico Embellisher, Delicata Shimmery Silver and Golden Glitz AND some of the newest releases from Magenta. Take a moment to visit the other featured artists' blogs listed below and leave a comment on their posts by midnight PST September 21st. Three winners will be randomly selected from three different blogs from the seven days of the Hop, with one commenter from each blog draw as the winner.

Presenting the other featured projects for today:

Blog Hop Hint– if you click on a link that takes you to a page saying something like, “Sorry this page cannot be found,” just click on the header at the top of the blog (usually a picture, or the blog’s name), and it will take you to that blog’s most recent post. That post *should* be our hop. If not, you can probably scroll down a short way to find the hop post.

Sunday, September 14, 2014

Welcome to a week of fantastic collaboration between IMAGINE Crafts and Magenta Rubber Stamps! Both companies are excited to share with you their products, from the latest inks from IMAGINE Crafts to the newest Fall and Holiday stamp releases from Magenta.

I'm starting with two of my favorite Magenta stamps from the new release, along with some fabulous IMAGINE Crafts products, one of which I'm over the moon excited about...but more about that in a minute. First, here's my card:

To start with, I stamped the Magenta Snowy Evergreens and Multilingual Christmas sentiments onto watercolor paper, with Versamark Ink, and embossed with IMAGINE Crafts Sparkle Embossing powder. In real life, this gives the snowy trees and the sentiment a beautiful sparkle. Three colors of Memento blue inks were then sponged on, using Tsukineko Ink blushers sponges. The hills were added by sponging around Magenta's Masks, which are ideal to create snowy drifts.

This is my favorite part: The snow was added using the new Irresistible Pico Embellisher in Wedding Dress (white). The snowflakes are dimensional bumps that really add to the beauty of the snowy scene. The Wedding Dress color of the Pico Embellisher is brand new, and is a must have for winter scenes! With the easy to use dispenser on the Pico Embellisher, it was simple to just randomly dot snowflakes all over the scene. Last, I matted the watercolor panel on blue mirracard, and then onto a white card base.

I love, love this card, and I think it will be my Christmas card this year. The languages in this multilingual sentiment are English, French, Icelandic (yes! in my heart, Iceland), Spanish, Dutch, Japanese, and Russian.

Give this technique a try...it was quick and pretty easy to do. I've listed all the supplies I used. Now, please enjoy the rest of the blog hop by clicking on the links below. Leave me a comment to let me know what you think of my card, and to be eligible for a fabulous prize.

Magenta products used:

07.883.K Multilingual Christmas

0690.L Snowy Evergreens

TM-40 Masks

IMAGINE Crafts/Tsukineko products used:

Memento Dye Ink: Blue Danube; Nautical Blue; Paris Dusk

Versamark Ink

Inkblushers

IMAGINE Crafts Sparkle Embossing Powder EB-000-006

Irresistible Pico Embellisher, Wedding Dress IW-000-910

Other:

140 # Strathmore Cold Press watercolor paper

Blue Mirracard

Prizes galore for participating in the Blog Hop this week!

IMAGINE Crafts and Magenta are offering a total of three different prizes this week as part of this Blog Hop. These prizes include IMAGINE Crafts' irRESISTible Texture Spray, irRESISTible Pico Embellisher, Delicata Shimmery Silver and Golden Glitz AND some of the newest releases from Magenta. Take a moment to visit the other featured artists' blogs listed below and leave a comment on their posts by midnight PST September 21st. Three winners will be randomly selected from three different blogs from the seven days of the Hop, with one commenter from each blog draw as the winner.

Presenting the other featured projects for today:

Blog Hop Hint– if you click on a link that takes you to a page saying something like, “Sorry this page cannot be found,” just click on the header at the top of the blog (usually a picture, or the blog’s name), and it will take you to that blog’s most recent post. That post *should* be our hop. If not, you can probably scroll down a short way to find the hop post.

Thursday, September 4, 2014

In conjunction with our email newsletter at Art 'n Soul this week, this is the newest Technique of the Week. You can make your own pearly, shimmery sprays easily using re-inker, water and Perfect Pearls powder.

Here are the items I assembled for making my pearly sprays. I selected Distress re-inkers in Peacock Feathers, Picked Raspberry, and Mustard Seed. The Perfect Pearls powder I used is Pearl, but Confetti White is a new favorite as well.

Just add one dropper full of re-inker to each mini-mister bottle.

Add water, but don't fill it up all the way. You will need room at the top when you shake your product up to mix it well.

I use the wooden end of a paintbrush to scoop out the powder. I usually put 3 of these tiny scoops of powder into a mini-mister bottle (as opposed to a 2 oz bottle, into which I mix 1/4 tsp of powder).

You don't want to use too much powder, because the mica can clog your sprayer

Once the powder has been added, shake your bottle well.

I like to add a pearl to the top of my pearly water bottles, so I use Copic markers to color white pearls to match the spray as closely as possible, and then attach them to the top of the spray cap.

Don't look too closely, I may have..um..sprayed my finger

Here's the card I made with my new sprays. I wish you could see how beautifully shimmery this is in real life. I used a Magenta template and stamp. Once the sprays were made, the card literally took minutes to make; and you could use a card like this for lots of occasions. I applied Stickles to the centers of the flowers, and sprinkled a few enamel dots.

Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Create a Card,
a Layout or even an alterned object if you feel like it,

follow the
theme and use at least one Magenta product:

papers, stamps,
embellishment, Peel Off's, chipboard and more...

You could win this Magenta Prize :

The Magenta Challenge for September is to use a Fall theme, and
to use at least one Magenta product.

Here's my card:

If you look closely, you can see I'm still loving the acrylic block stamping technique. I stamped using bleach onto black paper with one of my acrylic blocks. I then added green watercolor (Distress ink mixed with water and Perfect Pearls Pearl), and stamped the small Autumn Maple Leaf stamp in white. I colored the leaf with colored pencils. On my base card, I stamped the Large Autumn Maple leaf with Versamark, and embossed in gold. I then stamped the small leaf several times with Versamark. I added the sentiment and sprinkled in some gems.

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About Me

I live in the beautiful Pacific Northwest part of the U.S.,
in Olympia, Washington with my husband of 37 years.We have three wonderful grown children, and four grandsons. I did some stamping in
the 80’s, but drifted away to do jewelry-making and knitting.I came back to stamping and card making
when I discovered Art ‘n Soul; a fabulous fine art stamp store in Olympia. I worked at Art'n Soul for over 6 years before they closed in late 2017. I learned so much and really enjoyed my time there.I
love to use many different techniques and mediums in my papercrafting,
including paints, inks, glazes, markers, stencils, watercolor, etc.I also love to Zentangle, and you never
know when tangles will find their way into my work.